Wednesday, April 02, 2014

Spring has come to Albuquerque

Traveling west from Oklahoma City today we enjoyed the changing scenery. Farmland and wind farms in western Oklahoma, the boring and very flat Texas panhandle including feedlots, and the desert and mountains of New Mexico. In Albuquerque, it's spring.

The sun was shining in the Plaza in Old Town.

Historic San Felipe church in the Plaza

Even the Mexican curio shops are full of sunshine!

Real spring flowers in bloom in the courtyards with tourist shops.

Wall paintings and benches in sun-filled courtyards

Around an hour before we made it to Albuquerque we changed drivers at a super-touristy roadside attraction called "Cline's Corners." (If you've read American Gods by Neil Gaiman, it's that kind of place, only bigger.) The copied ceramic story-teller statues and fake Indian pots all made in China, the junky copies of Indian jewelry and cheap imitation Indian blankets were depressing, but this was the worst:

"Medicine Man Speaks -- $1.00"

I really could not believe I was seeing this in the twenty-first century! I thought they got rid of this kind of thing long ago.

About Me

I live in Ann Arbor, Michigan, but love to travel, to live in temporary places, and to cook and eat in new places. I began blogging in 2006, and kept both a food and a travel blog through 2015. I'm now posting both food and travel at maefood.blogspot.com -- including various posts about Mona Lisa parodies, detective fiction, world literature and many other interests.